Apple will stop autocorrecting swear word to ‘ducking’

Much to the frustration of users in those moments where you just want to type a ducking word, well, the keyboard will learn it, too,” Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, said at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference said on Monday.

The senior Apple executive said autocorrect has previously relied on machine learning, but he keyboard will now use a “state-of-the-art” transformer language model in a new software update.

In iOS 17, iPhone’s new operating system set to be released in September, the keyboard will learn users’ habits and preferences, including when to correct certain words and when to leave others alone.

An additional feature will also allow users to tap a word that has been autocorrected and quickly revert back to the original version, Federighi said on Monday.

He added that the update also aims to improve autocorrect’s ability to fix grammatical errors and provide predictions for words and phrases in line as users type — which can be filled in by tapping the space bar.